Star Gazing
by Crystle
Summary: Ino's off on another one of her crazy tangents, and Shikamaru's stuck being the one that has to listen. Will he surive? Or will he fall asleep? One-shot [ShikaIno]


Star Gazing

* * *

Yamanaka Ino was in a bad moon. Admittedly, this was not something so uncommon—usually, she sank into one of these moods whenever she had met up with that team 7 and had encountered the cherry blossom and her teammates. Or team_mate _as far as Ino seemed to be concerned. The teammate was, of course, a certain Uchiha Sasuke. The whole meeting went usually something like this: Ino would squeal and latch herself (like a limpet) to Sasuke's arm while the boy in question scowled and tried to shake her away. Sakura would get all worked up and begin screaming and shouting, while Ino gladly dished back what was served and after a whole lot of complicated business what resulted was usually six huge headaches. 

But unfortunately, Ino had never been one to handle headaches very well. So now she was angry, and when she was angry she wanted to rant and scream and kick things, and when she ranted and screamed and kicked things, she wanted someone there to sympathize dangit!

And very unfortunately, as was happening a lot, Shikamaru found himself being that person.

"And then—and then!—that girl had the nerve to say that _she_ was the only one that—"

Shikanaru sighed. Ino had caught him while he had been rather peacefully gazing at the nearly sunset sky, and they were sitting at his favorite cloud-gazing spot.

Or, rather, _he_ was sitting at his favorite cloud-gazing spot. Ino was up and about—pacing, screaming, nearly _frothing_ at the mouth. Several times the boy had been tempted to try and ignore her and go back to watching the sky, but every time he tried to do so, he'd been brought back down to earth by a particularly piercing scream or a kick at the tree he was leaning against.

_Mou, troublesome…_

Although his bored and tired mind did manage to think that it was much better for her to take her anger out on the poor tree rather than something—or some_one_ else. Namely him.

"Shikamaru!"

Damn her voice was so loud…and commanding…and piercing…

"Shikamaru! Are you even _listening to me??_!"

He pretended to be asleep.

Ha! He wished!

"I _try_ and tell my teammate—_my own teammate!—_my troubles, but does he care? Does he even care to _listen_? Huh?? _Shikamaru!_"

This time she did kick him.

He obligingly grunted, but otherwise ignored her. Thank clouds, think Shogi, think Go…He tried to conjure up a Go board in his mind and imagined as certain play. Now if his opponent went here…and then he would go here…and…

And…

"…"

The clearing was silent. Actually silent. So silent Shikamaru would actually hear himself _breathe_.

For a moment he wondered if all that screaming the girl had done next to his ears had finally rendered him deaf. Jeez, how troublesome…Utterly troublesome…

But he cracked one eye open.

Was she gone? Had she…given up?

That was impossible. Ino never gave up, and that Uchiha boy proved it. So why was it so quiet?

Suddenly he had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. A _I'm-not-going-to be-ABLE-to-do-much-else-then-cloud-gaze-soon_ kind of feeling.

He decided he shouldn't try opening his eyes yet.

But as silence stretched on longer and longer, a sort of wary curiosity surfaced. Had she _really _left? Really?

He had to know.

_You're ruining this for yourself, _a voice in the back of his mind warned him. _She left you alone! Who cares _why_—just be happy! Go to sleep! Dream! Just _keep your eyes closed

But he opened them anyway.

Only to find himself staring straight into the wide, piercing gaze of twin blue orbs.

They were centimeters—centimeters, he swore!—from his own, and that in itself may not have been terribly bad but for the fact that those eyes belonged to a face that was also less than inches from his face.

"I knew you weren't really asleep," she whispered.

Shikamaru had the sudden horrifying thought that he might be _blushing_. He tried to scowl and move backwards—away from those blue eyes—only to find that his face wasn't working well and that it was very hard to scoot backwards when there was a very solid tree pressing against your back.

_Troublesome…_

"No one could sleep with your loud annoying voice," he said in lack of any other brilliant idea. Sometimes he really doubted his 200 plus IQ.

Ino pouted, but didn't move her face away. "My voice isn't annoying!" she complained.

"Yes, it is. Definitely."

Which was the wrong answer and he was immediately rewarded a smack on the side of the head.

He grumbled.

_Troublesome, troublesome…So troublesome…_

For a moment he pondered whether the energy it would take to move away from those blue eyes would be worth it, and then decided it might not be.

"Say it isn't," she suddenly commanded,

Say what isn't what?"

Oh.

Right.

_Mou…_

"Say it! Say it!"

It looked as if the girl was just about ready to dish out more Ino-abuse and Shikamaru caved. Ah, it was easier this way…

"It's not."

She tilted her head, her face still entirely too close for comfort. "What's not what?" she pressed.

The boy she had pined against the tree grumbled again.

"Your voice isn't annoying. Now let me go."

Ino seemed momentarily satisfied and backed away.

The sun was nearly set. There would be no more cloud-gazing for this day.

Shikamaru sighed yet again. It seemed to be a rather addictive habit.

What a troublesome girl—to be so noisy and bossy while he was trying to relax and steal his cloud-watching time away.

"Hey—Shikamaru!"

Oh no, not again…what was it this time?

"Shikamaru!"

This was beginning to sound all too familier and the boy in question heaved a huge sigh.

And just as he was falling asleep too…

"Yeah?"

His eyes were lazily closed, but he heard and felt someone lie down next to him.

"Have you ever tried star-gazing instead of cloud-gazing?" Ino asked him, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. It seemed to suit the shadowed dusk.

Shikamaru was about to tell her that he'd never done such a thing because stars only came out at night and at night he, like most other sane human beings, was asleep. He then decided all that would take far too much energy to speak and settled on just "No."

"You should try it—it's nice."

He snorted. Nope, nuh-uh, these eyes of his were not going to open until about tomorrow noon—not if he could help it!

But, of course, when dealing with Yamanaka Ino, there wasn't a whole lot he could help.

"See—see! That's the dipper. I can't remember if it's the big one or the little one, but it's there! See?"

There was a rustling sound.

"Shikamaru! Wake up!"

_Damn, so close…_

A hand reached out and relentlessly shook him while the other arm pointed to a location in the now dark sky.

He tiredly cracked an eye open. Yeah, Yeah, pattern of stars, looked like a water dipper—what the big fuss was about he didn't know.

"See it?"

He yawned. "Yeah, yeah. I see it."

She giggled. Her annoyance and Sasuke-obsessed thoughts from a moment ago now seemed forgotten, and for that Shikamaru was insanely glad.

"Hey, I've gotta go home now…Walk me?"

Her eyes still seemed to glow, and he could still detect their blue-ness, even in the dark.

He sighed. It was final. He was addicted.

But he was addicted to her too, and so he agreed.

* * *

Haha, written when I was in a _very_ weird mood, so please don't hold it against me. I haven't really written fanfiction in a long while, but my friend got me hooked on Naruto, and I got myself hooked onto ShikaIno, so this is what happened. I hope it's been at least a thinsy bit enjoyable—or that you aren't, at least, beating yourself over the head and clawing at your eyes…T.T;; 

It's a One-shot—so no updating! However, I'm in the mood for writing some more little not-very-heavy-romancing-but-weird-romantic-like Naruto one-shots so…. Which pairing should I do next? SakuraxSasuke? HinataxNaruto? …NejixTenten….o.o;; That would be scary for me…Haha. But I like reading it, so I suppose I can write it! Tell me what you would like, and I'll try and piece it together!

Thanks for reading!


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